


The Mistress and the Professor

by on_the_run_from_the_MI5



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode: s08e11-12 Dark Water/Death in Heaven, F/M, First Meetings, Post-Reichenbach, Power Play, Villains, Wholock, but rather Missiarty, it's weird - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 14:02:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3137039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/on_the_run_from_the_MI5/pseuds/on_the_run_from_the_MI5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Mr. Moriarty? Hi. So glad you could make it.”<br/>Jim Moriarty looked around calmly, yet his brain was processing everything he could see and making its deductions. <br/>“Make it to my own death?” He smiled at the dark-haired man opposite of him. “I’m sure it’s not that surprising.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mistress and the Professor

**Author's Note:**

> How did I even let this happen?! I thought about Wholock and... it became a bit of Missiarty. Sorry. And I actually like Jim better, but... in this fic, Missy just nails it.  
> For Mimi, because that's all your fault.

“Mr. Moriarty? Hi. So glad you could make it.”

Jim Moriarty looked around calmly, yet his brain was processing everything he could see and making its deductions. Light colours. Desk. Guy in a neat suit – not neat enough for Jim’s taste, but still. Splendid smile he had, though. Everything was bright and clean and chic and sterile. Quite obvious.

“Make it to my own death?” He smiled at the dark-haired man opposite of him. “I’m sure it’s not that surprising.”

Mr. Suit-and-smile raised his eyebrows and smiled conspiratorially. “Oh, you _are_ quite fast, Mr. Moriarty.”

“I shot myself in the head, darling, and now I’m here. Doesn’t take a genius to know what that means... although... I am one.” He winked and gave the lad a cunning smile.

Slightly irritated by Moriarty’s confidence, Mr. Suit-and-smile looked down at his papers. “So... suicide, was it? My condolence.”

“Oh really...” Moriarty muttered, instantly disappointed. “That’s your best line?”

“It’s standard procedure, Mr. Moriarty, especially for suicidal people. They usually arrive here in a rather...deranged state.”

“Oh...” Moriarty said softly in fake innocence. “And do I look deranged to you? You know, that’s really not flattering. It seems I just reached a new level of existence! You could be a bit more... cheery, don’t you think?” The consulting criminal stood up and began strolling around the office because... why not? He might as well. Wherefore was he dead if he didn’t get to enjoy himself a little?

“Err... cheery?” Mr. Suit-and-smile cleared his throat as Jim passed him by to eye the painting on the wall behind the desk. “I’m sorry...we don’t get a lot of cheery suicidal people, Sir.”

“Consider me a first, then...” He stopped short and turned around. “What’s your name?”

“It’s Seb, Sir”, the man said.

“Seb. Seb.” Jim wandered around, tasting the three letters on his tongue. “That’s a nice name. I knew a Seb once. What a fellow, that one...” He spun around quickly on his heel. “So tell me, Seb – whatever you are – where exactly am I?”

“Well, Sir”, Seb started, coming to stand next to Moriarty as he inspected another painting. “This is probably the part that is the hardest to explain... err... are you acquainted with the concept of an afterlife?”

Moriarty faced him, his expression completely blank. Seb blinked and said nothing. _Oh, really?_

“Oh, come on, Seb, that’s just not fair”, Moriarty whined dramatically. “This is supposed to be your answer? The afterlife? Even if I believed in any of those ridiculous constructs... what kind of afterlife would that be?”

“Oh, we did our best to make sure everything is to the liking of the deceased. We’ve got beautiful suites, the room service is all inclusive, you have free access to Wi-Fi–”

“And that’s all very nice, but look at this.” Moriarty pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is all like it was before. Accountants in suits... offices with desks... I imagined so much _more_ , Seb. Something more fiery. Somewhere I can put my throne. And now I’ll have to be content to be the king of...this.”

He indicated his surroundings, and just as Seb recoiled slightly, Jim heard a female voice saying, “Tut, tut, tut, Mr. Moriarty.”

Jim turned to find an interesting-looking lady sitting behind Seb’s desk, legs crossed under her billowing Victorian dress, a graceful hand correcting the sit of the hat placed on her hair.

Now that was going to be quite interesting.

“Nobody becomes king here as long as there’s a queen in charge”, the woman said with a brilliant smile.

Moriarty slowly strutted towards her, the guy in the suit completely forgotten. “And I reckon the queen is you, am I right?”

The woman laughed, or at least she looked like it. No sound left her mouth, she just grinned broadly, laid her head back elegantly and lifted her shoulders like a diva.

She was completely mad. Moriarty was completely intrigued.

“Yes, I am the queen, honey.” She stood up and walked around the desk with elegant strides until she stood face to face with Jim. “And you may as well call me Milady, if you want to.”

The consulting criminal smiled wickedly. “Oh, there’s nothing I’d like to do less. So, may I ask for your name?”

The woman made the tutting noise again, but then she laughed. “You are quite cheeky, Mr. Moriarty. My name is Missy.”

Moriarty smiled as she held out her hand for him to shake. “Oh, Missy, as I guess you know all about me, we might as well be honest with each other, and there is no way a woman like you is called Missy, am I right?”

For a moment, her smile faltered, but then she laughed whole-heartedly. “Well, Jim, you are just delightful.” Quicker than you could think, she’d stopped laughing and was all serious, her eyes cold and her presence even more overwhelming than before. “I am the Mistress.”

Now Jim stuck out his hand with a conspiratorial glint in his eyes, waiting for her to take it. “Now that is a name I like”, he said as she shook his hand as gracefully as the queen she appeared to be.

She pulled him a little closer by their joined hands. “Formerly the Master”, she whispered. “I hope that doesn’t unsettle you.”

“Oh no. This is the kind of thing that is nothing more than trivia to me.”

She laughed as she let go and slightly hit his shoulder. “Now you are something, Mr. Moriarty.”

“The same goes for you, Mistress.”

They looked at each other for a while, until the Mistress finally said, “Would you leave us alone, Seb?”

The guy cleared his throat. Looked from the Mistress to Jim and back again. “Of course.”

When he had closed the door behind him, the Mistress indicated Moriarty to sit down in his chair, and the consulting criminal complied, only that he strode all the way around the desk to sit down in Seb’s chair. It was just the ordinary thing he did for fun. To test out the limits.

The Mistress honestly didn’t even seem to mind. She just sat down on the desk, anyway. Higher than him. This little genius...

“So...you mind telling me where I am?” Jim murmured, trying and mainly succeeding to sound bored as he inspected his fingernails. “Because I am really not buying the afterlife thing. It just...doesn’t seem right.”

The Mistress smiled generously, as if he were a kid that had solved a maths task. “Your body, Mr. Moriarty, is currently being carried down from the roof of St. Bart’s Hospital in London. The question has to be more specific: where is your _mind_? The answer is: your mind is here. Safe. With me.”

Moriarty looked around for a moment. “‘Safe’ as in ‘saved’? Like on a hard drive?”

She touched her heart, as if she were very moved and very self-satisfied and very proud of her little boy. Moriarty was disgusted and loved it.

“I knew I didn’t bring you in vain”, she said in delight. She leaned her hands back onto the table, suddenly all business. “I’ve got plans for us, Jim.”

“Us?” Jim sighed and stood up, straightening his jacket as he started to walk towards the door. It was a useless way he made, but he hoped it delivered the message that he was the one in charge here. “I’m sorry, but I’m not big on the team work.”

And just as he touched the doorknob, the Mistress said loudly, “Plans that involve the whole universe.”

Despite himself, Jim stopped immediately.

“I win”, the Mistress laughed as he looked at her.

Moriarty shrugged coolly. “True greatness only shows in defeat.”

“Oh, but I’d rather be a bad winner than a good loser.” The Mistress smiled sickeningly sweet, and Moriarty couldn’t help but walk back to her. With a little shove, she showed him to sit down again, and this time, he didn’t fight back.

“Soooo... the universe, Mr. Moriarty. Should I keep talking or do you already know what I’m going to say?”

He looked up into her blue, blue eyes and saw... the same madness he had so often seen in his own. “Well, I don’t think you’re planning to make it a better place of freedom, love and hope, do you?”

The Mistress laughed genuinely. “Oh dear, no. What kind of idea is that? No, no, no, Jim, _I_ want to _conquer_ it. I want to make mine, I want it to play by my rules. I am a villain, you see? And _you_ , Jim...” She leaned forward teasingly. “You could be by my side.”

Moriarty lifted one eyebrow, unimpressed by her speech. “Why me?”

“Oh, because you are a villain as well, aren’t you? The great antagonist to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the criminal mastermind, the spider... I know you, Jim. I know all the things you’ve done and – dear me – you _are_ evil. And you are devoted to your plans. Killed yourself just so he’d jump – you naughty, naughty boy.”

Jim even had to laugh a little as he held out his hands. “Guilty, I suppose. But still: what’s it to me? If _you_ make the universe yours?”

“Oh, do have a little fantasy, Jim!” she scolded him with a furrowed brow. “Planning, plotting, scheming. It’s pure _power_. Fighting the best man the universe has ever seen – and who is my best friend, by the way. Ever heard of the Doctor? Well, not that I need namedropping, but he is, you could say, my Sherlock Holmes. Who, by the way, is not dead at all, so that’s another reason for you to work with me.”

“Sherlock lives?” Jim gasped as if he were completely shocked...only that it turned to a laugh soon enough. “Believe me, I figured that much.”

He’d hoped to surprise the Mistress with that, but she just looked him up and down with a scrutinizing look. “For a mere human, you are quite calm facing all of this. A mad woman talking about conquering the universe – isn’t that the slightest bit weird for you?”

“Well, this mere human right here has just shot himself in the head, come to here in the ‘afterlife’ and is now having a nice chit-chat with you, dear Mistress – it’s not so hard to believe you are in fact an extraterrestrial super-villain. Or you are just something that my brilliant mind has made up to entertain itself. Either way, I think this is quite fu-uun.” And that old sing-song was back in his voice.

The Mistress rolled her eyes at that. “Honey, I am _the_ super-villain.”

“Yeah...we might need to talk about that.”

She giggled. “Oh, you talk all you want, Jim, I’m rather more a woman of _action_.” At the last word, she crashed her fist into the desk she was sitting on, causing Moriarty to jump _ever_ so slightly.

She leaned forward again. “So what do you think, Jim? Are you willing to work under my employ?”

Jim sighed deeply, as if it were really hard for him. “I am afraid I have to inform you that I am not willing to work under anyone’s employ. Not even if they are as charming as you. Sorry.”

Just as he thought he’d finally got her with that answer, she tutted again and inspected her fingernails while she smiled at him, making it obvious that she was mirroring his gesture from earlier. “Oh, well... then I am afraid I have to remind you, Jimmy, that your mind is currently saved on my hard drive, and only I have the power to bring you back to life, and if you behave, I might even be so gracious to restore your body – because honestly, you’re not so bad-looking. Otherwise... you know, you might just wake up...dead.” She shrugged, the glint in her eyes telling him that she knew she’d won.

Moriarty took a heavy breath in and stood up, once more straightening his jacket in a sharp little movement. “I’m so going to burn you for that, Missy.”

She did that soundless laugh again and then looked at him. “Oh, Jimmy... some like it hot.”


End file.
